


Both Faith and Want of Faith

by Mussimm



Series: Works and Days [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-08
Updated: 2016-07-13
Packaged: 2018-07-22 07:16:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7425244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mussimm/pseuds/Mussimm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seven gods post-canon ficlets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Crone

Jaime didn't know what to do.

He had never had a mind for politics, he was helpless in the face of the kingdoms shattering into seven once more. All he could do was follow orders and try not to get killed. But even that simple task was more often than not a mire of impossible decisions.

No one in his camp had failed to notice the Stark outriders.

For the first time he could remember, they weren't fighting the Starks. Or perhaps they were, he didn't know anymore.

How his brother would laugh if the Lannisters met their end by a chance encounter with an enemy they weren't even truly at war with.

Riding out to treat with King Jon, his archers followed in the trees, ready to end the King in the North if this was a surprise attack. They weren't at war (perhaps) but Jaime could start another if he so chose. That was just what they needed.

The King's party were healthier and more numerous than Jaime's own, at home in the snow and the thick forest. His archers were better hidden. The stern Northern commanders who ruled their stern lands and lead their stern men. 

When he saw her among the party, draped in wolf pelts, her cheeks pink from the cold, he almost cried out with relief. Oathkeeper's hilt was the only glint of gold in a sea of black and grey.

"King Jon," he greeted. "Finally come to besiege the Rock? A little late for all that, isn't it?"

The king did not smile. Still a dour little boy. "Kingslayer. The Ironborn are assaulting our coast, we've come to put them down. And you, what's your business?"

"Roses on the Goldroad. Can't have them stinking up the West. So shall we smash our meagre hosts together and see what comes of it, or continue on our way?"

"The Ironborn are our concern, not you. A truce while our armies pass."

Jaime cast a glance at Bronn, who was smirking at the King in the North like the man was trying to sell him a bridge. To put down arms while the larger army swarmed around them would be a good way to get them all killed. Dead Ned would never dream up such a deception, but none of them had taken the measure of his bastard.

Bronn spoke, "And what's to stop you slitting all our throats in the night?"

"Honour," said Jon. "And our word."

While the two men stared each other down Jaime snuck a glance at Brienne. Asking her outright would again, _bloody again_ , drag her intractable honour into the mud with his own in the eyes of the Northerners.

He raised an eyebrow at this grey and white and just a hint of gold wench.

She nodded.

"Well, what man could argue with that?" Jaime said, already turning his horse about to return to camp. "We'll see you again on the return, your grace."

"No, you won't," King Jon's words followed him.

_No_ , Jaime thought as he spurred his horse forward. _That would be too much to ask._


	2. The Father

There was no protecting her men. Brienne had some romantic notion that if she just made the right choices, took to the right strategy... The Light of the West, the Dragon Queen, the Salt King, the Dothraki or the sellswords or the Brotherhood Without Banners or whoever else seized the opportunity had relieved her of that notion.

Where the lords kept finding young men to fill out their ranks was a mystery to her. The recent dead were beginning to outnumber the living. Who would bring a child into this?

She wasn't supposed to command, she was supposed to be Princess Sansa's shield. But whenever there was an incursion in the southwest King Jon begged her off Sansa, an unspoken agreement amongst the war council that her mere presence would deter the Lannisters from attacking their dwindling army.

She had overheard Cley Cerwyn in his cups. "Any man who kills the bitch will get Jaime Lannister's sword through his back, and they all know it."

Another two hundred of hers were feeding the crows south of Oldstones, on the borders of no man's land. But they had held off the Dothraki raiding party, for the most part. Surely her oath to Catelyn Stark was not so twisted by her acting as shield to the smallfolk and the army as well as her daughter.

In the distance a column of red banners waved. Lannister forces out to gods knew where. The last Brienne had heard, they were all recalled to defend the Rock. Mayhaps they weren't even troops, but a diplomatic party.

A young man on a horse bearing no colours skirted the far side of their recent battlefield, turning white snow brown as his horse's hooves tore up the ground. A scout or some other outrider to the distant army.

He circled back, pretending not to look at them, not to notice the Stark banners or the knights slowly filtering back toward camp. Brienne's forces had the high ground and most of their numbers, but the sea of dead might have made them look like an easy target.

She rode out toward the still-circling scout, ignoring Pod's protest.

Through blood and bodies and soiled snow she walked her horse slowly, not wanting to desecrate any of the bodies of the dead. Some of her forces were sorting out the dead, looting the Dothraki and putting the fatally wounded out of their misery. Silent sisters moved amongst them like ghosts.

The scout noticed her when she was halfway across the field, or he noticed Pod holding her standard. The colours of Tarth, a silk shield for her army.

The confusion on the scout's face melted away, replaced by relief. He knew there wouldn't be a battle today. She halted her horse, having no intention of engaging him. If she wanted to talk to a Lannister, she'd have found the only one worth talking to.

In the distance she saw a single white horse canter alongside the rows of bay and chestnut.


	3. The Smith

_Now what is Princess Sansa doing on the road?_ Jaime wondered. And with virtually no escort. Mayhaps she was off to another disastrous marriage.

The inns between the Twins and Harrenhal didn't care who they quartered, so long as no one waved their banners. The dragons would surely hang the lot of them for serving wolves, lions, fish and falcons. _They lay with lions_. But dragons were a far off concern. It seemed they had built their peace on the backs of corpses. Their armies were running out of people to kill.

Each dawn seemed further and further away. Jaime sometimes felt as though he was hanging off the edge of the world, in some twilight where the sun never rose and the snow never ceased.

But a little sunlight made it even to the end of the world.

Even he was not so brazen as to approach Sansa's party, to tempt them to violence in this tenuous peace. But he could look. They hadn't noticed him. He wasn't dressed in Lannister colours, nor did he carry their sigil. A quiet mission to accept a pledge of fealty. Just one more old man, another brick in the wall of old men hunched over their ale, not wearing their sigils.

He could look.

Brienne looked well. At ease with the Starks. Warrior women were not such a queer thing up north. The pelt about her shoulders which he had thought on the Goldroad to be several wolves was in fact just one direwolf. She must have been fitting in nicely there. Oathkeeper still gleamed from regular care, although it was missing a ruby from the hilt. All things age. She was aging, as well, but kindly. A few more years suited her, made her tend less to gangly and more to powerful. Sometimes it was hard to remember that she was just a girl.

She laughed at something Sansa said and he felt a smile leap to his face as well. Had he ever seen her smile before? It looked well on her.

"She wears her house colours now," Marbrand said from beside him, gesturing to her pink and blue quartered tunic. "So we can see her from a distance. She thinks her presence alone will stall a Lannister attack."

"And have we ever attacked her forces?" Jaime asked.

Marbrand gave him a sour look. "No. Somehow our commanders always have a change of heart when they see Tarth colours. Decide to make truce."

"Then it appears she's right." As it did so often, Tyrion's laughter sprang to mind. "Who would have thought that here, at the end of the world, it would be Starks and Lannisters showing the rest of them how to make peace?"

She looked so healthy. So many of them were bandaged and bruised but not his wench. How could she be? If she was ever in danger of taking a blow young Podrick would fling himself on the sword in her stead. The boy looked well, too.

Pod caught his eye and a secret smile stole across his face. Jaime raised his cup to the boy and Pod returned the gesture. Maybe the two of them were knights by now. Pod turned to Brienne and whispered in her ear.

She looked straight at Jaime, eyes wide with surprise. Such blue eyes. Her whole face softened, her lips parting, brows drawn together like some desperate urge had overcome her on which she could not act. Jaime knew the look, he might have mirrored it himself had he not been prepared.

The moment had barely begun when it was shattered by Marbrand's hand clapping down on his shoulder.

"Come on," the man stood, his stool squeaking across the floor. "You know the rules. Wed the girl or don't make a fool of yourself. We've an oath to accept."

Jaime stole one more glance at her, finding her staring as openly as he had been a few moments ago. He offered her a small smile, which she returned.

Their friendship would hold the peace together a while longer.


	4. The Mother

She had been so stupid to think the peace could hold forever.

A hundred enemies encroaching from all sides but at least she didn't have to face _him_. She hadn't had to face anyone for a blissful time, the southwest settled and she could once again do her sworn duty by Sansa's side.

But it couldn't last forever.

The blurry lines of the tentative peace zone had blurred too far. Now she wasn't even sure who was attacking and who defending or why King Jon had thought she could make anything out of this. The woods were too thick, the snow too deep, the men's clothing so tattered that it was hard to tell which banner they fought under.

Her sortie had been broken, but so had their forward encampment. They had to round up whoever they could in the thick forest surrounding the camp. It was hard to tell if the men were more danger as prisoners draining their supplies or with swords in hand if they rejoined the main host.

Brienne dismounted, calling for her men to break and capture any they could. The Lannisters were in full retreat, she suspected they would capture few or none. She followed a man into the trees.

The shadows stretched long in the eternal dusk, each tree multiplied by umbra and penumbra, the fleeting figure of a single man quickly lost. Just as she was quickly lost, whipping about at every movement, Oathkeeper raised. She caught sight of a fleeing figure and chased it, unsure if her path was true or winding.

It was slow work in the snow. She had lost feeling in her feet hours ago and feared tripping on some unseen root or shrub, doomed to be butchered by Lannisters or simply forgotten in the snow.

The man she chased escaped her, but she saw another. Her own man or not? Her breathing was coming heavy, her chest burning. She hysterically thought the woods might never end, she might wander them forever, accompanied only by shadows.

She tried to run, moving as fast as she could, feeling the blood trickle down her face and freeze in place. 

Up ahead she saw a path of light, some clearing, some movement in it. She redoubled her efforts, the trees around her reaching out in flesh and shadow to grab at her as he heart rose to her throat and she needed to be in whatever sunlight was left to her.

Brienne burst into the clearing, heaving grateful breaths.

She heard the sing of drawn steel and turned to face her foe.

Jaime Lannister held his sword in one good hand, his feet set to fight. Horror dawned on his face and on hers as she brought Oathkeeper to bear.

"I didn't know," he said. "I didn't know it was you."

He looked as tired as she felt. She could kill him, she had no doubt. With two hands she might have bested him, with one she was certain of victory. She had to. He was an enemy commander, the Lannister's _best_ commander.

Brienne tried to ignore that look in his eyes, the stark admiration and kindness and some other value she could not name. He forgave her for anything she might do, she knew that. He forgave all her sins long before she could commit them.

"Go," she said. "Go now!" 

Pod's far off voice called her attention behind her, and when she looked back he was gone, leaving her to wonder if she'd only dreamed up her treasonous mercy.


	5. The Stranger

Jaime wished he had more than a white silk shield as he rode into the Stark camp. The men who escorted him looked as if they might cut him up for meat.

Honour was going to get him killed. He barely knew the meaning of the word anymore yet it hung round his neck like a noose. It was all instinct at this point, his vows long forgotten, only his own guidance to tell him right from wrong. And it would have been wrong not to come. And it would have been wrong to deliver the news by messenger.

She couldn't know yet. He only knew because of trickery and spies, and neither were welcome amongst Starks.

The northern fires burned brightly in the midday darkness. There was no use for trees in this night, they sheltered nothing and were best fed to the fire. Cold seemed a constant companion and Jaime ached for a hot bath, to remind him that he hadn't lost his fingers or toes to frostbite. He might as well have, he hadn't felt them in weeks.

The white pavilion that dominated the camp glowed from within but looked no warmer than the outside.

His guards commanded him to dismount and he did so, the snow coming up to his knee as his feet hit the ground.

The Stark war council had all turned out to see him. Jaime Lannister under a banner of peace. The White Wolf looked more in his element than ever, his sister at his right hand, surrounded by the lords of winter. Brienne sat beside her Princess, looking so much warmer than he felt in her northern furs.

"Kingslayer," King Jon said. "You've come to negotiate peace."

"'Fraid not," said Jaime.

"Then what? Is your peace banner another broken vow?"

Jaime resisted snapping at the boy king. He resisted a jape and resisted Tyrion's voice in the back of his head telling him to go for the throat and call the boy a bastard and a deserter. He had other business. "I'm here as a matter of courtesy. We've received news from the south."

"What news?"

Jaime ran his thumb over his lip, buying himself a few seconds. "A Targaryen raiding party struck Tarth a sennight past. The isle defended itself ably, but..."

Silence fell over the tent. Jaime watched the realisation dawn on Brienne, blue eyes widening in dismay. "My father."

"I'm sorry, my lady."

Sansa rested a hand on the wench's arm, a gesture Jaime would have preferred to make himself. She said nothing more, her gaze distant.

"You've done Lady Brienne a kindness, Kingslayer," said the boy king. "You are free to leave our camp and return to your own."

A kindness. Jaime sneered as he took his leave. A kindness she would surely remember forever. He had made himself the harbinger of her family's death. The new Evenstar may never forgive him.


	6. The Warrior

She could end this, Brienne thought as she took leather to Oathkeeper's blade. 

If King Jon came up with terms of peace she could cast off the illusion and take them to Jaime. And he would accept. She would make him accept, through curses or kisses. 

"I didn't think you needed to sharpen Valyrian steel."

Brienne raised her head and Sansa held out a hand, preventing her from rising. Brienne shrugged. "I suppose not, but it doesn't hurt to be in the habit."

Sansa sat next to her in a rustle of velvet skirts. "You've lost a ruby."

"I have it. I found it. It can be repaired at Winterfel."

"If we ever make it back there," Sansa said.

"Do you... think King Jon would sue for peace with the Lannisters?" Brienne asked.

Sansa laughed darkly. "We've sent the Lannisters terms before. Cersei ripped them up and burned them."

"We wouldn't have to go through Cersei. If... If I sent terms to Ser Jaime..."

She would forever be the Kingslayer's Whore, but what did it matter anymore? King Jon trusted her, Princess Sansa trusted her and all their lords and ladies had little choice but to follow. The Wildling men would not stop alternately trying to steal her or showering her with gifts. The men she lead would follow her. What was one more cruel nickname compared to not fighting Jaime anymore?

Sansa studied her. It was the curious, half-pitying stare of anyone who was considering the queer friendship between the Maid of Tarth and the Kingslayer. "He would read a missive from you, wouldn't he? We don't talk about it, but he would."

"Yes."

"I'll ask Jon. We've enough enemies, he may be willing to treat with them."

Brienne bent her head to focus on her work again, the empty socket on the hilt glaring at her. She had fumbled in the snow for what felt like hours to find the missing ruby. She wouldn't have it said in a generation's time that a lucky boy might stumble on Brienne's Rubies as they now did for Rhaegar's. 

And if there was any drop of the Mother's mercy in the world, soon her sword would be just for show. At least where the Lannisters were concerned.


	7. The Maiden

Jaime knew it was a trap from the second he dismounted.

He managed not to wince or flinch as the blades were drawn. He didn't care about them. Didn't care about the smug Stark grins, making a jape of his naivety. He had come unarmed, as the message instructed.

Brienne's message.

He tried to run, as was his duty, but without sword and without allies it was a short lived attempt. A quarrel punched through his side and he fell, rocks and hard snow rising up to kiss him. The cold was worse than the pain as snow melted against his neck and chest.

Lord Glover's men hauled him to his feet and held his arms. Jaime flicked his gaze around, trying to find her. He would make her look him in the eye if she was to betray him. What was it this time, what had they threatened if she didn't lure him to his death?

It took him a moment to realise that she wasn't in the party. And a moment longer to realise why. If she was betraying him he wouldn't have to seek her out, she'd take his last words and put the sword through his gut herself. There was only one reason he could imagine for her absence.

"You didn't tell her," he said, starting to laugh, ignoring the radiating pain in his side.

Robett Glover stepped forward, keeping his blade between them. "Aye, that's the first rule of betrayin' someone. Not telling them about it."

"Tell me, Lord Glover," Jaime said. "What's burning your White Wolf the most? Me or her? Being less honourable than the Kingslayer, or biting the trusting hand of the Maid of Tarth?"

"Who said it was King Jon gave the order? Lady Brienne is a good sort, but there're more than a few who don't like her keeping a pet lion." Glover shrugged. "When we take you to the King he won't let you go again out of pity."

So it wasn't death. Imprisonment, again.

"She'll tear you apart for this," Jaime said.

Glover laughed. "Who says she'll ever even know we have you?"

As the frozen shackles closed around his wrists and he began to feel light-headed from pain he cursed himself for his stupidity. His wench was surrounded by wolves and he had forgotten. Her stupid, stubborn, pig-headed nature was always to trust her allies, but he was supposed to be the shrewd one. It was his job to relieve her of her innocence and he had failed to do so.

Instead she had given him back his own.

 


End file.
